1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for storing data through a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
As computer technology has developed, the size of data handled by various applications has grown larger and larger. As a result, costly mass storage media, such as MO (magneto-optical) and CD-R/RW disks are required for backing up of data. In addition, a disk array system equipped with mirroring and error correction by RAID (Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks) is commonly used as a system for improving security of data to be stored, but this system also involves a significant cost.
On the other hand, tremendous increases in the capacity of hard disk drives (hereinafter referred to simply as “HDD”) have been achieved in recent years, and even ordinary personal computers (hereinafter referred to simply as “PCs”) now commonly come equipped with an HDD having a capacity of few tens of gigabytes (GB). However, these high capacity HDDs are rarely utilized to their maximum capacity, and, in general, a significant portion of the HDD capacity is substantially unused. Therefore, in large companies, for example, in which thousands or tens of thousands of PCs are connected to an internal network, a data storage capacity measured in terabytes remains idle and unused in the internal network.
The present invention was conceived in consideration of the above, and an advantage of the present invention is that a technique for inexpensively storing data using the available capacity of individual computer device connected to a network is provided.